All posts by Guest Post

Education, Women

Shannon Behan, Principal, Westview Elementary School: Life-long learning makes leaders

By Isabelle Southcott, originally published on qathet Living

Every weekday morning starting in 2019, Shannon Behan woke up at 4 am to work on her PhD. At 6 am, she’d get ready for her day as Principal of Westview Elementary School. Then, she would spend two hours every evening and all day Saturday and Sunday researching and writing for her degree. 

“I took breaks to go running, though,” she smiled.

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Health

New lease on life through early intervention

By Mark Brett, Penticton Herald, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Needing a heart transplant at seven months old to stay alive, Hudson Suh’s story is one of strength and determination.

After spending nearly the entire first year of his life in a hospital bed, when he was finally well enough to leave, the young boy had challenges in his physical development.

So when the Suh family, Joe and Tiffany,  relocated to the Okanagan in 2020, they enrolled “Huddy,” who is now four, at the OSNS Child and Youth Development Centre. There he underwent the life-changing, early intervention services including occupational and physiotherapy and speech pathology.

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Arts, Community

Much love for Ukraine

By Mark Brett, Penticton Herald, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A standing ovation was the culmination to a “life-changing” visit to the South Okanagan for a group of young Calgary dancers.

But the real beneficiaries of the shows at the Frank Venables Theatre in Oliver and the Cleland Theatre are some of the millions of Ukrainians now struggling for survival.

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Family

The Record Is Good for Babies Delivered by Midwives

By Moira Wyton, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Expanding midwifery care in British Columbia could help improve pregnancy outcomes for birthing parents and babies, particularly those  in rural and remote areas, according to a new study from B.C.-based  researchers.

Pregnant people under the  care of midwives were less likely to have underweight or preterm babies,  or to require the use of forceps, vacuums or caesarean sections to  deliver their babies than patients being cared for by only family doctors or  obstetricians, a Monday study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found. 

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Community

Leaving home a matter of life and death

By Mark Brett, Penticton Herald, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in a five-part series about local efforts to help Ukrainian refugees. Today we profile the work of a different organization, Ukrainian Canadian Volunteers Association, which is also helping settle newcomers in the South Okanagan and those who remained behind. People indiscriminately gunned down on city streets, the almost-constant piercing sound of the air raid sirens and families cowering in shelters praying for the bombing to end. That’s everyday life for many people in Ukraine since a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War in February 2022. Liudmyla Shkyn, 60, and her mother Hanna Opanasko, 81, who now live in Penticton, were two of the lucky ones, barely managing to escape the bloodshed.

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